


I Think It's Best We Both Forget

by Howling



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Aggressive!Stiles, Angst, Biting, Desperate Sex, F/M, First Time, Future Fic, Hand Jobs, Infidelity, Jealousy, M/M, Scent Marking, Sterek-centric
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-05
Updated: 2012-11-05
Packaged: 2017-11-18 01:03:17
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,438
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/555158
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Howling/pseuds/Howling
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>The worst part of it is that he knows he should feel uncertain; that the gnawing guilt in his chest is a warning that’s meant to give him pause.  But he doesn’t feel uncertain at all.</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	I Think It's Best We Both Forget

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ravelqueen](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ravelqueen/gifts).



  
_Well, maybe I’m a crook for stealing your heart away_   
_And maybe I’m a crook for not caring for it_   
_Yeah, maybe I’m a bad, bad, bad… bad person_   
_Well, baby I know._   


_So I think it’s best_  
 _We both forget_  
 _Before we dwell on it_

_The way you held me so tight_  
 _All through the night_  
 _‘til it was near morning_

-Of Monsters and Men

_[Love Love Love](http://youtu.be/Oz720CJ9z_M) _

* * *

 

The first time Stiles has sex with Derek, it’s three days after his seventeenth birthday and a month after he’s started dating Lydia.  They’ve just survived an encounter with the remaining members of the Alpha pack and somehow Stiles ends up alone with Derek in the burnt-out shell of the Hale house.  Derek’s shirt is torn and bloodied and there are streaks of mud on the long slope of his arm.  Both of them are soaked to the bone.  Between the chill in the air and the adrenaline pumping through his body, Stiles can’t stop shivering.

Derek takes him upstairs to loan him dry clothes, and somehow Stiles ends up kissing him.  It’s quick and impulsive and Stiles instantly regrets it – doesn’t even know why he does it except that Derek is standing close enough to touch and for a brief, insane moment he actually _wants_ to touch him.

In his head, he blames it on the adrenaline, and the fact that he’s cold and Derek radiates heat like a furnace.  Out loud, he never gets the chance, because Derek kisses him back.

They don’t say a word to each other the entire time.  Stiles comes twice – once while Derek grinds him against the wall and once while he sucks him off on the bed – before Derek tears off their remaining clothes and pushes Stiles onto his knees.  When Stiles glances back, Derek gives him a look that’s all-at-once starving and broken.  And that almost ruins everything, because Stiles can’t deal with seeing his own guilt reflected in Derek’s eyes – and because Stiles is scared and wrecked and he knows that if he really starts to think about what they’re doing, he won’t be able to do it.

He hates Derek, in that moment, for daring to act human.  For being vulnerable.  And he hates the way that Derek tilts his head and asks, silently, for permission.  Because it’s the right thing to do, and Stiles doesn’t want that image of Derek in his mind.  He doesn’t want to see him as a decent person.  Mostly, he can’t stand the thoughts that are roiling around in his head, and he hates Derek for making him look at them and acknowledge that this is something that he wants.  But it _is_ something that he wants – recklessly and against reason – so he parts his lips and nods.

Afterwards, Stiles is sore in about a hundred different places.  He leaves without saying goodbye, and doesn’t check to see if Derek watches him go.

**-oOo-**

A week later, he and Lydia have sex for the first (and only) time.

Four days after, they break up.  Scott knows that something is off, but if he guesses the reason, he never says anything.  Stiles spends the next few months mourning a relationship he never really had, because it’s hard to let go of a dream when you’ve held onto it like a life-preserver for nine years. 

He has exactly one conversation with Derek about their encounter.  It happens after they finally chase the alphas out of town.  Stiles is lonely and frustrated and a little drunk when he drives out to see Derek at his house.  Derek takes one look at him, shoves him into the passenger seat, steals the keys and drives him back home.  They sit in front of Stiles’ empty house for a couple of minutes before Derek looks at him and says, “It shouldn’t have happened, and it’s not going to happen again.”

And for a long time, it doesn’t. 

**-oOo-**

Things are awkward at first.  Months pass where they barely speak to each other about anything that isn’t pack business.  They stop fighting, which should be a relief but somehow isn’t.  Once, they end up pressed against each other behind a tree while a gang of hunters pass by, and the two of them share an aborted spark of heat before Derek pushes Stiles aside and jogs to catch up with the others.

By the time senior year rolls around, they’ve started to fall back into their routine, but there’s a tension between them that never entirely goes away.

Stiles comes out to Scott.  Then, reluctantly – his dad.  Partway through the year, he starts dating a guy that Lydia hooks him up with, but the chemistry between them is never much warmer than comfortable.  The first time he and Alex fool around, Stiles tells him he’s only been with Lydia.  Some days it doesn’t even feel like a lie.

Then three months after graduation, Derek shows up at Stiles’ window.  It’s two days before Stiles is set to move halfway across the country with Scott and Allison to start his life as a college-borne adult, and the last thing Stiles wants to deal with is some supernatural emergency, but before he can say anything to this effect Derek surges forward and kisses him.

It’s a ravenous thing, the way they kiss.  And the bone-deep ache of need that Stiles had thought long-buried flares to life as if no time had passed at all.

The evening disappears far too quickly.  Dusk winds its way into night before they finally give in to exhaustion and sprawl in a tangle of limbs and sweat and sticky-sex.  They don’t talk for a while, and Stiles thinks fleetingly of Alex (who he has yet to end things with,) and realizes that this is the second time in as many relationships where he’s ended up in bed with Derek.  The guilt doesn’t overwhelm him, this time.  Maybe he’s getting used to thinking of himself as a selfish person.  Maybe he’s just too tired to care.

Stiles’ voice is cracked and raw when he turns his head into the crook of Derek’s shoulder and asks, “Why now?”

Derek doesn’t answer, but for the rest of the night he holds Stiles like it’s the only thing keeping him grounded.

In the morning, he’s gone.  Stiles never gets to say goodbye.

**-oOo-**

Scott and Stiles take to college life like they were born for it.  UW-Madison is the sort of campus that welcomes gregarious jocks and quirky intellectuals in equal measure, and the two of them manage to carve out a place for themselves within weeks of moving there.  It turns out that Wisconsin has a fairly large werewolf population, and Scott manages to round up a few of the younger omegas.  His pack is five members strong by the time they hit mid-terms.

Everything is sort of perfect, really.

Except when things get quiet, and Stiles finds himself alone with images and sense-memories of Derek that he can’t seem to chase away.  He and Alex try the long-distance thing for about a month before Alex finally breaks up with him.  Afterward, Stiles feels both sad and relieved, but relief fades quickly into loneliness.  He has a couple of tipsy hook-ups that he sort of regrets (and sort of doesn’t,) but doesn’t have much luck with dating – mostly because he can’t seem to muster any real investment.

One night he gets drunk and calls Derek on his cell.

“I need to yell at you,” Stiles mutters uselessly.

“So yell at me,” Derek says with a tired sigh.

“I hate you.  I hate you so… _fucking_ much.”

“…I’m sorry.”  Derek’s voice sounds bitter and resigned.

“You’re an asshole and I _hate_ you and I really just… wanna fuck you right now.”

Silence.

“Derek?”

“…You’re drunk.”

“Obviously.”

“Goodbye, Stiles.”

“Wait!”  Stiles’ voice goes high and reedy and a little desperate, but the line’s already dead.

**-oOo-**

He meets Sarah at Freakfest a week later, wedged amidst a churning sea of costumed bodies on State Street.  Stiles is dressed as Peter Parker, which basically means that he’s dressed as himself but with a pair of thick-rimmed glasses and a busted old camera hanging around his neck.  Sarah is short and brunette and _also_ dressed as Peter Parker.

Naturally they hit it off.

Later, Stiles learns that Sarah is a sophomore in the theatre department, and that she’s studying to be a set designer.  She introduces Stiles to fried cheese curds, which is legitimately the best thing he’s ever eaten, and takes him to see her family over Thanksgiving.

He tells her that he loves her, and thinks for the first time that he actually means it.

It ought to be enough to push the memory of Derek completely out of his head; to replace Derek’s sea-green eyes and broad shoulders and salty-musk scent with Sarah’s wry smile and soft hands – but it turns out that Stiles’ head has room for both.

Still, he doesn’t think about Derek so much, when Sarah’s there – and things get easier.

Except, of course, for finals week – which kicks his ass to hell and back.

Then it’s winter break.  And Christmas happens so suddenly that Stiles scarcely has time to buy everyone presents before he’s back home in Beacon Hills with his dad, trying (as they’ve done every Christmas since Stiles was twelve) not to acknowledge how much the holiday reminds them of Stiles’ mom, and of everything that’s lonely and wrong and fucked-up in both of their lives.

Stiles wishes that Sarah was there to help fill the silence.  He wonders, with a tired ache, if Derek feels the same way about Christmas that he does.  Given the fact that he’s never seen Derek celebrate it – even remembers Erica, one time, lamenting the fact that Derek tends to disappear around the holidays – Stiles suspects that he might feel a whole lot worse.

He drives out to Derek’s newly remodeled house late that afternoon.  The air in the woods is crisp and still; the sky above blanketed gray and heavy with the threat of cold December rain.  The property lies empty and silent, but for the faint scuttle of some animal in the leaves.

Derek isn’t home.  Stiles thinks of waiting; calls Derek’s name on the off-chance that he’s nearby.  In the end, he leaves the bottle of Knob Creek he’d brought with him on the porch, along with a note that takes him three drafts and about half an hour to write.

_So I’m having kind of a shit day.  I’m guessing you are too._

_-Stiles_

**-oOo-**

He doesn’t see Derek until New Year’s Eve, when everyone meets up at the Hale property.  The pack is there, of course.  Lydia is sadly absent, since she decided to spend the holidays in New York with her new boyfriend, but Jackson is there with Danny and some girl whose name Stiles doesn’t catch.  Against the odds, Erica and Boyd are still going strong, but Isaac is back to being single so he spends most of the evening talking to Scott and Allison.  This leaves Stiles to mingle awkwardly amongst Boyd and Erica’s friends, a few of whom turn out to be pretty okay.

Derek is conspicuously absent for the first hour of the party.  When he finally shows up, two other werewolves come sauntering after him.  Stiles knows they’re werewolves from the way Scott and Jackson look at them with pointed suspicion, but the atmosphere relaxes (slightly) when Isaac mentions that the two are friends of Derek’s from a few towns over.

One of them – a tall, olive-skinned woman in her late 20’s – makes herself comfortable with a beer in one of the living room chairs and insinuates herself easily into conversation with Allison and Danny.  The other, whose dark skin and pale eyes give him a distinctly striking appearance, follows Derek into the kitchen with barely a glance spared to the assembled group.

When Erica catches Stiles’ gaze lingering in Derek’s wake, she falls in at Stiles’ side with a conspiratorial smirk.  “His name’s Luke.  They’ve been hooking up for a couple of months now.”

Stiles looks at her with a startled expression.  Realistically, he shouldn’t be surprised at Derek for having a sex life, and he isn’t – not really.  But somehow he never expected to be confronted with it.  Derek had always been an exceptionally private person, and he wasn’t given to forming romantic attachments (at least, Stiles had never seen or heard of him actually dating anyone.)  After a pause he says, “Here I was starting to think he’d taken a vow of celibacy.”

At this, Erica gives a snort of laughter.  “Hardly.”

Stiles swallows against an uncomfortable dryness at the back of his throat and changes the subject.  When Erica becomes distracted by another conversation, he takes the opportunity to slip away and head for the kitchen.

In the back of his mind, Stiles knows it’s not a very good idea, but he does it anyway.

When he rounds the corner, he sees Luke and Derek standing by the sink, drinks in hand, talking in low, familiar tones.  Their conversation stalls when Stiles appears, and Luke looks at him with a detached, measured interest.  Derek affords Stiles a brief glance before taking a swig of his beer.

“Hey,” Stiles says awkwardly.

 “Do you need something?” Derek asks.  There’s a sheen of residue on his lips.  Luke looks at Derek’s mouth like he’s thinking of licking it off.

“Actually I was just… looking for Boyd,” Stiles lies.

“He’s in the rec room.”

“Right.  Thanks.”

It takes considerable effort for Stiles to walk away at a normal gait.  He doesn’t go to the rec room.  Instead, he winds his way through the crowded living room and makes his way out the back door.  He doesn’t think to bring his jacket, and outside the cold wind bites unforgivingly through the fabric of his red button-down.

When he reaches the edge of the woods, he starts to run.  After everything he’s been through, nothing about the wilderness should feel safe, but the lonely anonymity of the shadows builds a buffer between his rapidly beating heart and the fractured, suffocating complication of his life.

Eventually his foot catches on a log beneath the leaves and he pitches onto the ground.  He lands hard on one hip, but manages to avoid face-planting in the dirt.  When Stiles gets to his feet, he wipes streaks of black earth onto the sides of his already dirtied jeans.  He doesn’t notice the tear in the sleeve of his expensive shirt, or the long red line of a scratch that rises up on his neck.  His hands are numb and bruised; the muscles in his chest vice-tight.  He can’t seem to catch his breath.

“Stiles…” 

Derek’s carefully guarded voice drags Stiles back to reality.  When he turns around, he sees the older man’s shoulders rising in a quick breath and realizes numbly that Derek must have sprinted to catch up with him.  He’s not sure if it makes him feel better or worse. 

“Why the hell did you follow me?” Stiles snaps angrily.

Derek takes a breath and exhales roughly through his nose, aggravation evident in the tense set of his jaw.  “To make sure you don’t get yourself killed.”

“ _Really_ , asshole?  _That’s_ what you’re going to go with?”  Stiles turns away in a fit of frustration and scrapes short-bitten nails over the soft buzz of his hair, releasing a rough, visceral shout into the echoing darkness.  “This is so fucked,” he chokes out, feeling the wild energy drain from his voice.

There’s a long bout of silence between them.  Finally Derek says, with more gentleness than Stiles expects, “…Thanks for the bourbon.”

Stiles looks up through the branches and laughs softly.  “I thought I remembered you liking it.”

“I do.”

When Stiles turns around, he catches an edge of wariness in Derek’s gaze.  Not for the first time, he wonders what it is about himself that always seems to put the other man on the defensive.  “You should get back before this starts to look suspicious.”

“It already looks suspicious.”

“Yeah, well.  It’s gonna look a whole lot worse in a minute.”

Derek lifts his eyebrows.  “Why?”

Stiles takes three steps forward and locks his gaze on Derek’s eyes, lips parting softly.  “Why did you really follow me?”

Derek is silent a moment.  “Because you were upset.”

“Like you give a shit.”

“I wouldn’t be out here if I didn’t.  Stop acting like a wounded teenager.”

“Like I said,” Stiles repeats coldly.  “You’re free to go.”

Derek’s voice takes a demanding edge.  “Answer the question.”

Part of Stiles wants to look away; to turn and run from the inexorably destructive trajectory his heart and body pull him toward.  But Stiles has never been the kind of person to run from things that frighten him, so he wets his lips and says, “Because not touching you… is physically painful.”

Derek’s eyes dart to Stiles’ mouth.  He pulls in an unsteady breath.  Stiles takes another step forward.  He can feel the hum of tension in his hands as he stops himself from reaching out.  Distant, half-formed images of Sarah flicker through his thoughts, and for a moment he stops breathing.  The worst part of it is that he knows he should feel uncertain; that the gnawing guilt in his chest is a warning that’s meant to give him pause.  But he doesn’t feel uncertain at all. 

What he feels is fractured and a little heart-broken, and when he finally closes the distance between himself and Derek, he makes a sharp, vulnerable sound and closes his eyes against the well of emotion that threatens to spill over.  He kisses Derek in a swift motion, catching Derek’s lip in a pull of suction as he knots his fingers into the thick, dark hair at the back of Derek’s head.  And just like that, gravity closes and they lock together.  Stiles presses forward, half expecting Derek to put up some resistance at being manhandled, but Derek falls back willingly, allowing Stiles to herd him into the trunk of a nearby tree.  Stiles has his hands all over Derek, tracing the rough edge of Derek’s recently-shaven jaw and the curve of his throat; grasping at narrow hips; hiking up the edge of Derek’s form-tight Henley until he feels the firm, velvet heat of Derek’s abdominal muscles.  Derek wraps his arms around Stiles’ shoulders and drags his fingernails down the lean slope of Stiles’ back.

They kiss like two people trying to steal each other’s breath away.  It isn’t graceful or controlled.  Stiles rubs his skin raw on the friction of Derek’s stubble.  Derek bites Stiles’ lip too hard and leaves it aching and swollen.  There’s an almost feral desperation to it, and they cling together roughly in the dim moonlight, kissing and clawing and gasping for breath.

Stiles doesn’t feel cold anymore.  He can hear the hard beat of his pulse pounding like a drum behind his ears and taste the heavy fog of arousal in the air.  But when he grinds his denim-clad erection into Derek’s hip, Derek sucks in a breath and presses a palm to Stiles’ chest to push him away.  Derek licks his reddened lips and blinks, as though coming down from a high. 

“Stiles, stop,” he says in a thick voice.  “We can’t.  They’ll smell it.”

“I don’t care,” Stiles all-but snaps, pushing back against Derek’s hand.  When he looks at Derek he stills, voice dipping softly.  “I want him to smell me on you.”

Derek’s expression goes unreadable. 

“…What are you thinking?” Stiles asks, suddenly uncertain. 

Derek leans back and closes his eyes.  His lashes are a soft dust of shadow against his cheeks.  When he drops his hand, he catches Stiles’ wrist and draws it back to the warmth of his stomach – then lower, to the hard outline of his trapped cock.  “I’m not.”

Stiles’ eyes go wide and dark as his breath catches in his throat.  A moment later he has Derek’s Henley on the ground, and Derek pops about half the buttons on Stiles’ shirt in his rush to pull it open.  Stiles runs his hands down the contour of Derek’s back and over his ass, grasping the back of Derek’s thigh to bring his leg up as Stiles slots their hips together and thrusts against Derek’s weight.  The pressure it puts on Stiles’ cock is both perfect and painful, and Stiles makes a grab for a knot in the tree to keep himself steady as the warm ache between his legs threatens to overwhelm him.  Derek lifts an arm above his head and grasps the base of a low-hanging branch.  His pale muscles shift and flex beautifully in the low light, and Stiles groans as he rolls into him.  “ _Derek_ , god…”

Derek kisses him roughly, biting at Stiles’ lower lip.  He latches onto the curve of Stiles’ ass with his free hand and makes a low sound in his throat.  “Fuck, you’re hard.”

“Your fault,” Stiles breaths, scraping teeth over Derek’s jaw.  “Always your fault.”

“ _Always_ …” Derek laughs, the sound laced with bitter irony.  It’s enough to make Stiles go still for a moment and place a kiss beneath the corner of Derek’s jaw.

“When it’s like this, yeah.”  He slides his tongue up the curve of Derek’s ear and bites down lightly on the cartilage.  “You do that, you know.  You’re like a storm.  Light me up and tear me apart.”  A line of tension runs through Derek’s body in a controlled shudder.  Stiles arcs into it with a hard thrust.  “I always think about you when I jerk off.  The sounds you make.  The way your lips go red…” 

Derek tips his head back and moans, and Stiles nearly forgets himself in a wash of dizzy lust.  On impulse, he pulls back and grabs Derek by the waist, slipping between him and the tree.  Derek shifts to make room for Stiles, dropping his arm back to his side.  There’s an edge of a chill on Derek’s back, but his skin warms quickly when it presses into Stiles’ exposed chest.  Stiles snakes his arms around Derek’s torso and slides his hands down the smooth lines of his stomach.  He kisses the curve of Derek’s jugular while he unlocks the clasp of his belt.  When he gets Derek’s jeans open, Stiles looks down at the straining shape of Derek’s cotton-enmeshed erection and works his hands beneath the fabric to touch him. 

Derek’s cock is velvet-soft and burning to the touch, its head and foreskin slicked with pre-cum.  Stiles runs his fingers over it wonderingly, unable to help the instinctive flex of his hips.  “I want to watch you come.” 

Derek closes his eyes and leans back, rolling his head into the crook of Stiles’ shoulder.  Stiles props himself against the tree for support, pressing one foot against the trunk.  He pushes Derek’s underwear low enough to work Derek’s cock free and wrap his fist around it.  Stiles can feel his own heart beating wildly behind his ribs and wonders, idly, if Derek is listening to it.

Derek’s breath shudders unevenly and his cock gives a reflexive pulse when Stiles tightens his grip around the base.  Stiles bites his lip and pulls Derek flush against his own straining erection, clawing the tips of his fingers into Derek’s hip.  He pumps his fist slowly over the length of Derek’s cock and looks down over the beautiful display of sex and soft skin and toned, shifting muscles and can’t help the lurid moan that rises in his throat.  “Fuck, Derek… you’re so…”  Derek gives a slow roll of his hips, fucking up into Stiles’ hand with a needy groan.  Stiles yanks him back and grinds his trapped cock against the curve of Derek’s ass. 

Derek bites the side of Stiles’ neck hard enough to leave a mark.  Stiles lets out a strangled cry and tightens his grip on Derek’s length, fisting the rounded head between the tight circle of his fingers.  The skin there is hot and wet, and Stiles slides Derek’s foreskin over the sensitive nerve-cluster at the base of the flared hood.  At this, Derek gives a low, throaty whine and goes slightly limp.  Stiles thinks, distantly, that he should draw things out – that he doesn’t know when he’ll have another chance to be with Derek.  That it might be… months.  Years.  But that thought – that they might yet walk away from this, wash the combined scent from their skin and clothes, and go on with their lives – makes him all the more desperate to touch Derek.  To feel him break apart.  For a few minutes, for an hour… for however long the world allows it.

So Stiles doesn’t slow down.  He wrings shallow, rapid gasps from Derek’s lungs with the quick, focused motion of his fist and rests his hand over Derek’s heart.  Beneath Stiles’ palm, the violent drum of Derek’s pulse belies any semblance of control.

“Are you close?” Stiles whispers.  Derek leans his face against Stiles’ cheek and nods faintly.  One of his hands reaches back to clutch at Stiles’ hip as though to anchor himself.  Stiles grinds against Derek with frustrated abandon as he jerks him off, and when he feels Derek’s cock swell iron-hard in his grip he dips his head and sinks his teeth into the crook of Derek’s neck.  The bite is hard and claiming – harder even than Derek had bitten him.  Hard enough to leave a deep bruise that Stiles knows will heal the moment he pulls away.

“ _Ah!_ ”  Derek’s voice gives a sudden, high, unguarded shout.  Then he comes with a shuddering jerk of his hips, cock pulsing thick white shots of fluid over his chest and stomach.  The sight of it nearly tips Stiles over the edge with him.

“Oh my god, Derek…”  Stiles breathes against Derek’s neck and kisses the fading marks left by his teeth.  Derek closes his eyes and pulls in a couple of slow, deep breaths.  When Stiles drops his grip, Derek curves back and nips delicately at Stiles’ chin, giving a low hum of approval.  A moment later he lifts away and tucks himself back into his jeans.  He doesn’t bother fixing his belt, and turns suddenly to catch hold of Stiles’ shoulders and pin him to the tree.  Stiles sucks in a surprised breath as the two lock eyes.  Slowly, he brings his hand to his mouth and licks a stripe of Derek’s cum from between his fingers.  Then he swipes a long trail down the side of his neck and over his chest.

For a moment, the moonlight catches Derek’s eyes and they glint red.

Stiles gives an impatient moan when Derek’s hands find the front of his jeans.  Derek swallows the sound with the press of an open-mouthed kiss and pulls Stiles’ overheated cock into the stark chill of the night air.  Goosebumps prickle along Stiles’ exposed skin as he works the waistline of his pants and underwear low on his hips, pushing the fabric out of Derek’s way.  Derek breaks the kiss long enough to lick a line of running spit over his palm, then he wraps his hand around Stiles’ hard-on and smears the combined wetness of pre-cum and saliva over the sensitive head.  Stiles feels his cock jerk lightly in Derek’s grip, and he makes a thick sound in the back of his throat as he catches Derek’s lower lip between his teeth.  Derek kisses him roughly, then pulls back and locks a hand on Stiles’ chest to keep him in place (as if there was any chance he’d move.)  Stiles lets his eyes slide shut with a blissful flutter until Derek whispers, “Look at me.”

When Stiles opens his eyes, Derek’s face is a scant few inches from his own, watching him with a chillingly beautiful, surprisingly nuanced expression.  It’s difficult to keep his gaze focused – he’s so close to losing it already that he can barely remember his own name – but he does, and Derek stares him down as he touches him, pressing a thumb against the thick vein that runs the length of Stiles’ cock.  Derek drags his hand up slowly, swirls the pad of his thumb over the head and wraps his fingers tightly around it.  Stiles makes a high, needy sound and brings a hand to cup Derek’s jaw.  He gasps when Derek begins to jack him in earnest.  Derek’s hand is warm and tight, his skin slightly rough.  It catches a little as Derek’s spit dries, but Stiles only notices this distantly.  Mostly, there’s just the overwhelming relief of much-needed friction.  And Derek.

“Say something…” Stiles moans softly.

Derek doesn’t, at first.  Then he parts his lips and says, “You’re beautiful like this.”  He pauses.  Takes a breath.  “I want to remember this.  I want to see your face when I close my eyes.”  Finally he leans forward and breaks their prolonged eye-contact to lick the curve of Stiles’ throat with a low, soft sound.  “You smell like me.”

Stiles inhales a long breath and goes very still, his body coiled with tension.  When he comes, the air leaves his lungs in a shuddering rush.  He claws at Derek’s shoulders to keep himself from falling and releases a litany of unintelligible sounds.

Eventually he relaxes, releasing his grip on Derek to lean back against the tree.  Dreamily, he lets his gaze wander down Derek’s chest and gives a soft laugh.  “Guess now you smell like me too.”

Derek licks the fluid off his hand and meets Stiles’ gaze carefully.  “Thought that was what you wanted?”

Stiles swallows dryly.  In the absence of Derek’s warmth, the air feels much colder.  He pulls his clothes haphazardly back into place, zipping his jeans and re-fitting the intact buttons on his shirt.  “It is,” he says quietly.

Derek picks his shirt off the ground and shakes the leaves from it.  When he pauses to glance down the length of his torso, his lips give a slight twitch.

“You look like you just came off a porn set,” Stiles observes.  Derek gives a snort.

“You don’t look much better.” 

“Think they’ll figure it out?” Stiles teases tiredly.

“…Yeah,” Derek responds, dead-pan.  With a sigh, he uses his shirt to wipe the drying streaks of cum from his chest. 

“I should feel worse,” Stiles says softly, looking off into the distance.  “I should feel…”

“Like you just cheated on your girlfriend.”

The words sound so hard and final, the way Derek says them.  Stiles doesn’t respond for a long moment.  Then he says, “You know, the strange thing is, I always sort of felt like I was cheating on you with her.”

Derek looks up.  Around the edges of his carefully schooled expression, hints of uncertainty become visible.  “I doubt she’ll see it that way.”

“Of course not…”  Stiles’ voice goes quiet as he gazes into the distance, feeling as though something inside of him just fractured.  Suddenly, he falls back against the tree and slumps to the ground, wetness stinging his eyes.  “ _Shit_ …”

“Stiles?”  Derek drops his shirt and crouches next to him in the leaves, hovering a foot away.  His voice and body language feel awkwardly hesitant – still too unused to the idea that he could be anyone’s source of comfort (let alone that he might want to be.)

“I don’t want to hurt her,” Stiles says bitterly.  “She doesn’t deserve it.”  Derek reaches a hand for his shoulder, but Stiles shoves it away.  “I’m not a good person, Derek.”

Derek breathes out softly.  “Neither am I.” 

Stiles looks at him with a sad expression.  Slowly, the arc of his spine relaxes and he leans forward to drape his arms over his knees.  Derek doesn’t make any further move to touch him, so Stiles takes Derek’s hand and knots their fingers together. 

They don’t talk anymore, after that.  Until the cold becomes unbearable and the two of them stand up and make their way back to the house.

**-oOo-**

The third time Stiles has sex with Derek, everyone finds out.  Luke takes one look at Derek and leaves.  Scott is more upset than Stiles expects him to be – though Stiles thinks, in hindsight, that he shouldn’t be surprised. 

Sarah doesn’t talk to Stiles again for a long time.

But Stiles stays the night with Derek, and both are still there the next morning.

And the next.  And the next.

And when Stiles leaves to go back to school, neither of them say goodbye – because it isn’t one.


End file.
